Follow for more talkers

Mountain goats and bighorn sheep battling over diminishing resources

The mountain goat and the bighorn sheep will travel up to 15 miles or more to access these limited resources.

Avatar photo

Published

on
(Photo by Emilio Sánchez: via Pexels)

By Alice Clifford via SWNS

Goats are taking on sheep in mountain battles as essential resources diminish due to climate change and human activity, reveals new research.

The mountain goat and bighorn sheep have been found to be having high altitude contests above the tree line of their habitat that stretches between Colorado and Alberta in Canada.

Human activity in this area has deprived wildlife of essential resources such as water and food, leading to these contests.

Climate change also has played its part, as due to rising temperatures the glaciers that used to offer high levels of minerals have begun to vanish, leaving the wildlife with less options.

A new study also points to other diminishing resources such as desert water and shade in brutal areas from Africa, Asia, and North America.

Species in these extreme environments contest access to these biologically important resources but such interactions have not previously been catalogued by individual species.

Desert elephants in Namibia travel up to an impressive 40 miles to drink in far away waterholes.

The mountain goat and the bighorn sheep will travel up to 15 miles or more to access these limited resources.

The study, published in the journal, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, showed that mountain goats, with their saber-like horns, were victorious over bighorn sheep in more than 98 percent of the contests.

While mountain goats are native to northwestern North America, they are exotic in Colorado and Wyoming.

The bighorns however are native to this area, leading researchers to worry that these goats could completely displace the native animal.

Dr. Joel Berger, senior scientist for the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Barbara Cox-Anthony chair of wildlife conservation at Colorado State University, and the lead author of the study, said: “While humans continue to be justifiably concerned about the climate-induced havoc we’re wreaking planet-wide, much has remained unknown about species aggression among our mammalian brethren."

Forest Hayes, a PhD candidate at Colorado State University, and co-author of the study, said: “It’s been exciting to gather data in wind, snow, and cold on goats and sheep in both glacier and at Mt. Evans, Colorado, which reaches to more than 14,000 feet.

“Our observations both at close range and from distances of more than a mile provided unique opportunities for detecting and understanding ecological interactions.”

While the researchers see climate change as a key factor for the decrease of resources, they recognize that humans may be an even more immediate threat.

Berger said: “If we can’t offer species other than ourselves a chance, we’re just cooking our fates along similarly destructive paths.”

Stories and infographics by ‘Talker Research’ are available to download & ready to use. Stories and videos by ‘Talker News’ are managed by SWNS. To license content for editorial or commercial use and to see the full scope of SWNS content, please email [email protected] or submit an inquiry via our contact form.

Top Talkers